The Sentient Project
by Brythespy
Summary: Nobody knew how Balto understood the humans and went out to save Steele and his team. He wasn't even trained for it, yet he somehow pulled it off. How did Balto understand them? "The Sentient Project". Balto was part of an experiment done on him since birth, one that makes dogs smarter. Possibly as smart as humans. Better intro on chapter one, give it a read if you want.


Nobody knew how Balto understood the humans and went out to save Steele and his team. He wasn't even trained for it, yet he somehow pulled it off. How does Balto understand humans? This is the true story of how Balto came to be. Balto is part of an experiment to make dogs smarter.

1923, test tube puppies.

It was another ordinary day in an ordinary laboratory in an ordinary town. Ha, as if, there was nothing "ordinary" about any of those things. Today was the day the test tube puppies would be released, and this lab was part of a government funded experiment, and the town, hell, the only thing ordinary about that would be that it was at least on a familiar planet, Earth. Nothing was normal today, but for the lead scientist, Doctor Osnik, not normal meant it was a good sign.

Doctor Fredrik Osnik. German scientist working in a soviet laboratory on American grounds. Nome, Alaska.

"Set B... Hmm, B... Hey Johnny, what's a good name that starts with B?"

John snickered at the doctors words for a few reasons. His accent was funny, and his odd lucky charm of naming each batch of subjects based on their letter was also funny. Oh, and the fact that he always called him "Johnny" and refused to refer to him as "John".

"I don't know sir, Bob?"  
"No, no. Something... Exotic, unique."  
"Balthazar?"  
"Maybe... That sounds kinda right."  
"Batho... Bal...Balto?"  
"That works." John said.  
"Then subject Balto is our next candidate for the sentient project."

John patted the doctor on the back, congratulating him on another successful artificial Test tube puppy.

"Good, now leave the pup with Aniu and let's go get some Chinese food." John suggested.  
"Excellent idea."

Aniu was a pure bred wolf, not in the least bit artificial, she was captured, but not from the wild. She was saved from an illegal wolf fur camp, and if the team didn't save her, she would have been a fur suit for some rich white folks down in California. Dr. Osnik loved animals, after-all, this entire experiment was for the betterment of mankind, but it would also benifiet animals.

Osnik carefully wrapped the new artificially-grown puppy named Balto, and introduced him to Aniu. She was more than accepting of the pup, and allowed it to feed from her right away.

"Good girl." Osnik pet her head, and then locked her enclosure before dimming the lights a bit.  
"Haha, today I drive." Dr. Osnik ran out the door, lightly pushing John aside as he simply smiled and chased after the doctor.

John shook his head at the doctor, who was nearing 60 years old and still acted like a 20 year old fresh out of med school, more like J.D. from that TV show.

Two weeks later, scientific conference, Anchorage, Alaska.

Dr. Osnik was sharply dressed as he sipped from a glass of white wine. He focused on the CEO of the company that owned his laboratory until he finished his introductions to the press, then it came to the doctor himself to explain the rest.

"...And the leader of the project, and no doubt the brains behind the operation, Doctor Fredrik Osnik."

Osnik stood as the room was moderately toned with soft applause. He took his stand at the podium overlooking the 200 or so people from various journals, magazines, newspapers and radio networks. Only now did he realize how important this mission was.

"Ahem*. The current subject in question is named Balto. You'd wonder why we name subjects, it is because we feel as though Balto is family, and when he's family, there is no room for failure. So far, we've got a good feeling about Balto. His genes stemed from an extinct line of wolves who disappeared from the world a few thousand years ago. We used generic Alaskan Husky DNA for the father, and merged that."

He nodded to John, who was waiting for the cue.

"John, if you will."

John flipped and rotated a projector that showed off a few pictures in a slide-show of Balto and Aniu.

"We've begun the socialization process with him by givin him a real wolf as a surrogate mother. And human keepers take him away and spend time with him for 5 hours out if the day. Our goal before we even start any of the experiments, is to get him used to humans and not have fear of us."

He nodded to John again, signaling him to change the picture roll.

"Right now he is two weeks old. Heh, it's hard to believe that just two weeks ago he was in a container, a robot pregnancy. We will begin our first test when he is a month old."  
"So, what is it we are trying to do?" Osnik asked the audience.

He nodded to John again to change the picture reel. This time it showed different images.

One was of a dog playing chess with its human owners. Another showed a dog bringing a tool for a mechanic. And a third showed an officer giving instructions to a police dog.

"This." Osnik moved aside and motioned his arms for everyone to pay attention to the pictures. "Dogs have been mans best friend since the beginning of history, and its time that we upgraded our friends. How selfish would we be, to develops cars, machines, electricity, advanced medical and supplemental inventions, and not help out our friends? Dogs were mans earliest form of machines. We invented dogs. Forged from the mighty beast, wolves. And now it is time we upgrade that invention."

Osnik stopped and waved his hand at someone from the table below who had a question from him.

"Doctor Osnik, how do you plan to make dogs smarter?" A reporter asked.  
"Ah, I was just getting to that. John, roll the next slideshow please."

This time had a bit more gruesome images, ones of dogs being operated on. The first showed a dog with its skull open and it's brain completely exposed. The next was a close up of the image before, but showed that one of the doctors was holding something with tweezers over the dogs brain.

"That is brain matter from a human mind. Yes, you heard right. Some will say its crazy, but I call it innovation. The brain matter is from a human donor who passed away a few weeks ago. He left us a note along with his donor card that said "do what you will with my body, as long as it is for science!". We've gotten close before, but never has the canine brain accept and use the human part, it always rejected it and it would shrivel up and disintegrate, but Balto shows promise."

Osnik motioned to another person who had his hand up.

"Doctor, how many times has this procedure been done, and failed?"

Osnik sighed and seemed to count on his fingers a bit.

"Too... Too many to count, unfortunately. It saddens me at times, I wonder if its worth the lives of these animals. We treat them like our children, treat them like babies who cannot speak, so when they're lost, it affects us all. Ever since the breakdown of one of our scientists, we began naming our test subjects. Dr. Adams was an old friend of mine, and he grew too attached to set S, nick-named Siku. She was a pure-wolf, not much unlike Aniu herself. She had the whitest coat, untainted except for her ears, which was as if someone held her upside down and dipped them in grey paint. Adams wrote a short story about her, and mentions that her eyes were different colors. One a deep, dark copper red, the other was the exact polar opposite, a bright, icey-blue."

Osnik paused for a second, John caught onto this then restarted the slides how with a loud noise on purpose to draw people's attention. Osnik's expression changed from one of happiness, in re-calling the white wolf pup, to sadness with her unfortunate demise.

"Siku was only a few months old when we operated on her... The lead scientist was Doctor Adams. The night after surgery, he took Siku home with him. He gave her a normal dog life because since she was born, Siku had been in the laboratory. That day he took her home, let her play with his children, took Siku to the park and let her run free, and finally, after a long day of fun, let her sleep with him and his wife at the foot of their bed. He reported Siku being as normal as possible... Until she started acting "not normal". Adams reported that Siku started to try and stand on two legs, and after a while, she grew frustrated and tried to bite her own tail off. Adams continued by saying that Siku did succeed in severing her tail off, and eventually got standing on two legs to work. Other than that, Adams said she still behaved like a normal dog."

Osnik looked out at the people of the room, everyone was at the edge of their chairs, this scientific lecture had turned into story time and everyone was eager to hear more. John stood there and held his head low, for he was there when Dr. Adams retold the chain of events, and he knew what Osnik was going to say next.

"A normal dog... Until she snapped. Initial tests on her body read that she simply had a seizure due to the amount of blood she lost from the loss of her tail. But what really happened was much worse... She suffered extreme nerve overflow, everything- every single muscle in her body flexed and strained, breaking several of her bones in the process. Adams said that she cried out in agonizing pain for nearly an hour, as Adams had to lock Siku in a room to prevent any potential harm she could do to his family, he was help-less. After nearly two hours no sounds were heard, and Adams finally opened the door. Siku was dead."

"He... showed up the next day. Dead inside. Told me that these "abominations" should not continue. Adams said that he wished to experience the night again... Only this time had the guts to use his gun to end Siku's life _before_ she suffered for two hours."

Osnik stopped talking, and the room quickly went silent. Nobody wanted to say anything. Nobody wanted the events of Siku's operation to repeat itself. Perhaps Osnik made a bad choice in telling the press of the incident? No, that was not his way. He believed in freedom of information, the people had a right to know everything, and now that Osnik had nobody to worry about above him that could fire him for what he said, he was going to tell people everything.

"Balto shows promise.. I know... hope... that it will work, and the suffering of Siku would not be one Balto has to suffer. Good day."

Osnik left the podium and quickly walked out of the room, ignoring John as he tried to wave at him, but instead sat down at the nearest table as another man walked up to the microphone.

**This is a story I've been wanting to do for a while. If you've read "Balto in Concert" this is the universe from which that story is based. This universe is free, and anyone can write stories based off of this and you don't have to give credit to anyone. "Open-source alternate universe"... I like the sound of that.**


End file.
